Meeting Minutes from August 16th, 2010

We will be having a fundraiser at the opening of the Pepperell Covered Bridge on Saturday, September 4th from 1-4. A table only costs $20 for the day so it should be an easy money-maker for us.

The table will consist of Mardi Gras themed children’s games with prizes and a king cake raffle. Kellan, Laurel, Shelby, Meg, Margaret, and Sarah all volunteered to bake a cake.



There will be a brief meeting after school on Thursday, Sept. 2nd at 2 pm to make final arrangements for the games.



Don’t forget that we will be at Camp Beckett in Beckett, MA all day on September 19th for a day of team building, low ropes and high ropes. The bus will leave the high school at 7 am, and we should be back by about 7 pm. Lunch will be provided by the camp. Please set this date aside!



Fun(d)fest



We worked out more of the details on our Fall Fun(d)fest, which will be in October.

Fun(d)fest consists of a carwash, a yard sale, a bake sale, and our annual Horse Patty Bingo.



In case you’re not familiar with Horse Patty, here’s how it works: each student sells 10 tickets or more. Each ticket corresponds to a square on a grid, which we draw on the back field at the school. On the day of the event, three horses are let loose onto the field and the waiting begins. If a horse does its business on the square corresponding to your ticket, you win cash prizes of $100, $200, or $300 dollars. Believe it or not, this makes us a ton of money!



As an incentive to sell tickets, the student who sells their 10 tickets the fastest, the student who sells the most tickets overall, and the student who sells the first winning ticket each win a $25 bonus into their NOLA accounts.



If you’re cleaning out old stuff, don’t get rid of it yet! We’re going to need your unwanted clothes, games, toys, knickknacks and household items for our yard sale. The night before, we’ll have the school open to drop off donations. Students will need to come help sort and price the items that night as well.

We’re going to try and donate children’s clothes and toys that don’t sell to Cradles to Crayons, an organization that provides gifts to underprivileged kids.



Each student will also need to provide an item for the bake sale. In addition to the usual cookies, brownies, etc, we’re going to try to offer fresh pies and sweet breads. We’ll work out who’s bringing what when we get closer.



A group also worked on publicity. We want to make sure that fliers go up everywhere in the community about each of the events well in advance, as well as notices in local papers. Hannah is coordinating our publicity for this event, so contact her with any questions or ideas.



Uno’s in Nashua has offered to sponsor us with an event at their restaurant. The public would bring fliers to the restaurant on a certain date and a percentage of the proceeds of their meal would be sent directly to us. Unlike similar events we have done at Patriot Pizza, this event would last all day and Uno’s would distribute the fliers until the day before. They have also said that faculty at the school can order lunch through the event and they will deliver to the school.

In addition to all this, they have offered to cater the community night that we will hold after we return from New Orleans. A big thank-you to Uno’s!



Every year we send out requests for financial donations to businesses. This year, instead of sending them to every place we can think of, we tried a more targeted approach, sending personalized letters to specific businesses that seemed likely to make a contribution. It’s been a huge success!



There were a few suggestions made as to other organizations that we should try soliciting, including local banks, the Burnham Foundation, the Teacher’s Association, BAE, and of course, British Petroleum.



As the school year begins, please start thinking about your schedule. We will need to decide on two weekly meetings, one beginning at 2:15 and one at 4:00.

Thanks everyone! See you when school starts!

Meeting Minutes from July 13th, 2010

I. Watered community garden and helped Chris to work through and plant some additional vegetables.



II. Mailing for silent auction at spaghetti supper: stuffed, labeled and sealed envelopes with requests for donations for nearly 300 companies around New England and beyond. They were mailed as well.



III. Talked about Fun(d)fest, explained concept, established chairs

Chairs for Fun(d)fest

Carwash- Kyle F

Horse Patty- Alex & Matt Kirk

Yard/bake sale- Maria

Publicity- Hannah & Kellan

Please remember to start saving your donations and going through what you want to dispose of for the yard sale. More information to follow. Tickets for the horse patty bingo will go out the first week of school and we decided to have a special chair or chairs to do strictly advertisement.



IV. Planned carwash for (8/14), 10:00am until 2pm- please arrive by 9:30 am to set up and get ready. set up supply list, see below-

Carwash supplies:

Hoses: Kevin, Kyle

Shopvac: Ariana, Fred, Katie

Soap: Peter, Kyle, Jess

Bucket: Jeremy, Jess, Matt, Ashley, Meg, Colleen, and Allison

Sponges: Jeremy, Kell, Ashley, Meg, Jess

If you are not on this list, please feel free to bring something that can help us be successful.



V. Group trainging- Camp Becket in Becket, MA (Berkshires) will be on Sunday September 19. We will leave NM at 7am and be back at 7pm. Please plan accordingly well ahead of time in order to be present. Full participation is the goal because it is very important as we start this journey. More information will be sent home soon.



VI. A blog is being set up to help to facilitate communication. Minutes will be posted and it will help to get the word out there. More information to follow soon.

Hello!

Hello parents, members and supporters of the New Orleans Service Learning Program at North Middlesex.  We're so excited to start the new school year and get down to work.

Every week until we leave in February, we'll meet twice after school to plan and execute fundraisers and local service projects. Minutes of each meeting will be taken and posted here within the week. This is a great way for students to keep on top of events and responsibilities even if they miss a meeting or forget a date. We will continue to email the minutes out as well, but if you have tech problems or delete an email by accident you can find it here.

In addition to minutes, this blog will host photos of events and updates on our progress as we work towards our goals.

Thank you so much for your support!